September 23, 1969 (1969-09-23) – May 14, 1975 (1975-05-14)
Scene of Dennis Weaver in the ABC Movie of the Week, Duel, directed by Steven Spielberg. It premiered in Canada November 10, 1971, was telecast in the United States three days later and had a theatrical release in Europe in early 1973. It eventually had an American theatrical release on April 22, 1983.
In the 1960s, movie studios viewed television as a second-rate medium but also as a threat to their theatrical revenue, so they charged high fees for the privilege to broadcast their films. The networks experimented with having films made specifically for TV to lower expenses. NBC created the first weekly umbrella for such films with their World Premiere Movie in 1966, running in a two-hour time slot.
Until the late 1960s, ABC ran a distant third behind rivals CBS and NBC, leading to jokes about it coming in fourth among the three networks or about its acronym meaning "Almost Broadcasting Company". Desperation and a looser corporate structure allowed ABC to consider plans that the other two networks would not. Barry Diller, then a junior executive at ABC and later a co-founder of the Fox network, is often cited as the creator of the Movie of the Week (MotW), although the concept was actually originated by producer Roy Huggins. Huggins reasoned that many older theatrical films ran shorter than 90 minutes so requiring a 120-minute time slot was unnecessary. His proposal was rejected by NBC and CBS but became the subject of a cover story in the March 21, 1968 issue of Variety magazine. ABC executives read the article and contacted Huggins, who did not want to sell the idea but could produce the series through Universal, where he was under contract. Universal demanded a larger budget than ABC wanted to spend, as well as the exclusive right to produce all future TV movies for ABC, conditions that pushed ABC to control production on their own, purchasing films from various studios and production companies.[1] As the Variety article had effectively placed the concept into the public domain, ABC continued to develop it without Huggins' permission or involvement.[2] ABC consoled Huggins by allowing him to produce several films, including The Young Country, precursor to Alias Smith and Jones. Michael Karol repeated the claim in his book The ABC Movie of the Week Companion: A Loving Tribute to the Classic Series that the Movie of the Week was Diller's idea,[3] but this was based on hearsay.
The cover of the 2005 edition of The ABC Movie of the Week Companion shows the Zuni fetish doll from Trilogy of Terror (1975)
The shorter format allowed a smaller budget than two-hour TV movies. At $350,000 per film, it was less than half the budget of NBC's World Premiere movies.[1] It featured the work of producers like Aaron Spelling, David Wolper and Harve Bennett (all of whom later developed hit series of their own), and was produced by different production companies such as Bing Crosby Productions and the network's own ABC Circle Films. Spelling was particularly prolific, producing films under his own credit as well as through Spelling-Goldberg Productions and Thomas-Spelling Productions (partly owned by Danny Thomas).
The MotW provided ABC with a ratings hit and, along with Monday Night Football, helped establish the network as a legitimate competitor to rivals CBS and NBC. The films themselves varied in quality and were often escapist or sensationalistic in nature (suspense, horror and melodrama were staples), but some were critically well received. For example, Duel (1971), based on a Richard Matheson short story from Playboy, was director Steven Spielberg's first feature film, catapulting his career and enabling him to move from television to theatrical films.
The series was documented by Michael Karol in his 2005 book, The ABC Movie of the Week Companion: A Loving Tribute to the Classic Series, which was updated in 2008 (ISBN1-60528-023-2), and by Michael McKenna in The ABC Movie of the Week: Big Movies for the Small Screen.
Time slots
The MotW originally aired on Tuesday nights at 8:30 pm Eastern/7:30 pm Central. Established series The Mod Squad acted as a lead-in from 7:30 to 8:30, bringing the younger demographic. The shorter running time of the film freed the 10 p.m. time slot for a full 60-minute program, initially Marcus Welby, M.D. during the first season. Starting earlier at 8:30 could also prevent viewers from switching to competing movies at 9:00. Beginning with the 1971 season, ABC added a second MotW on Saturday night and adjusted the titles of the shows to the Movie of the Week and Movie of the Weekend. The following season, the Saturday installment was moved to Wednesday night, and the titles were adjusted to Tuesday Movie of the Week and Wednesday Movie of the Week.
During the 1973–74 season, ABC added another movie on Saturday nights to their schedule, this time titled the ABC Suspense Movie, and usually consisting of thriller, mystery and horror type films (some of which were reruns of movies which had originally aired as Movies of the Week).
The accompanying theme music was an orchestral version of "Nikki", a song composed by Burt Bacharach and named for his daughter. The theme was chosen by Marks and arranged by Harry Betts.[4]
Over the music was narration voiced by Dick Tufeld. "The Movie of the Week. Presenting the world premiere of an original motion picture produced especially for ABC (or 'for the Movie of the Week' in some seasons)." That would be followed by a promotional teaser for the movie.
The opening for the Saturday Movie of the Weekend featured footage of a silhouetted "rotating cameraman" operating a 35 mmmovie camera ([1]). This footage would later be incorporated into the opening of ABC's New York City television station WABC-TV's various movie umbrellas beginning around 1972–73, including and especially their weekday afternoon movie showcase The 4:30 Movie.
TV series pilots
The series was often used as a platform to show pilots for possible series for the network. It allowed the network to air pilots that it had already commissioned and paid for but had not ordered as regular series. As well, pilots that had already been sold as ongoing series or were being tested such as Kung Fu, The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky and Hutch, Longstreet, Toma, Alias Smith and Jones and Get Christie Love! premiered here and returned on the regular schedule after minor to major alterations to the premise and/or cast. Other programs are sometimes mistakenly believed to have aired under the Movie of the Week banner. Marcus Welby, M.D., for example, premiered after Seven in Darkness and was the lead-out for the Tuesday installment. Still others, like Earth II and Robert Conrad's version of Nick Carter were actually shown on other movie series, such as The ABC Sunday Night Movie.
Many of the telefilms had actors credited as guest stars, special guest stars and "special appearance by", even if the movie was not a pilot for a series. Death Race and The Weekend Nun billed their lead actors as special guest stars. In the unusual case of Assault on the Wayne, all of the first-billed cast members were credited as guest stars.
End
The series proper ended in 1975 as ABC's ratings collapsed that season. Analysts laid part of the blame on ABC's overreliance on the MotW, which had suffered from ratings fatigue and a perceived drop in quality despite some notable films. The latter was symptomized by an increased number of pilots as well as remakes and variations of established intellectual properties, such as The Swiss Family Robinson, The Mark of Zorro, The Hatfields and the McCoys and Matt Helm.[5] After that, ABC's made-for-TV movies were aired either as stand-alone specials or shown in time slots that included both original and theatrical movie presentations, notably the ABC Friday Night Movie and the ABC Sunday Night Movie. The Tuesday Movie of the Week would later be incorporated as part of ABC Late Night, a replacement of ABC's Wide World of Entertainment that ran from 1976 to 1982; the late-night version would mainly feature repeats of movies, both made for television and traditional theatrical releases, that were previously seen on ABC and other networks. ABC continued to premiere new TV films on Sunday nights in prime time until 2005.
During the 1970s, ABC's local owned-and-operated stations (in a fewof thenation'sbiggestcities; at the time, they all broadcast on channel 7) featured The 4:30 Movie on weekday afternoons (the actual time varied by city, but generally after ABC's morning/midday game shows and soap operas); it featured mainly major Hollywood theatrical releases, but some installments of the Movie of the Week were also rebroadcast here.
Unsold pilot. Screenplay by and produced by Jimmy Sangster, based on his novel, Private I. Filmed at Pinewood Studios and on location in London. The three main characters were reworked into another pilot, Foreign Exchange (1.17).
Unsold pilot. Screenplay by and produced by Jimmy Sangster, based on his novel, Foreign Exchange. Filmed at Pinewood Studios and on location in London. This is a soft reboot of The Spy Killer (1.08) with the events of the earlier pilot completely ignored. John Smith is reintroduced as a traditional spy rather than a counterintelligence assassin.
Teams of benevolent and hostile aliens compete in a contest for dominion of Earth, but one falls in love with a woman he meets on a bus. Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Angie Dickinson**, Daniel J. Travanti (as Dan Travanty), Harry Basch
Kidnappers accidentally kill their victim before they can collect the ransom, then abduct three nuns from a car to stand-in to convince the victim's father that she is still alive. Starring: Robert Conrad, Lee Majors, Lois Nettleton, Carol Lynley, Jane Wyatt
Two young people – one buttoned-down and the other free-spirited – are detained together for a day as suspects after they unwittingly encounter a traitorous scientist passing secrets on a park bench. Starring: Patty Duke, Ted Bessell, Andrew Duggan, John Astin, Alice GhostleyTerry Carter, Dick Balduzzi
Produced by Harve Bennett, who would later hire Richard Anderson to co-star on The Six Million Dollar Man and Monte Markham to guest star on the same TV series as the Seven Million Dollar Man.
A woman begins receiving phone calls from her supposedly dead nephew Michael and begins to wonder if Michael is really dead, or if she is losing touch with reality. Starring: Ben Gazzara, Elizabeth Ashley, Michael Douglas, Marian Waldman, Al Waxman
Produced by Harve Bennett, who would incorporate parts of the plot and footage into "Pilot Error", a 1974 episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, a TV series for which he was executive producer.
A wealthy woman is trapped during a storm in a house with no electricity or phone. A killer has murdered her sister, stuffed the body in the basement, and is now after her. Starring: Elizabeth Montgomery, Eileen Heckart, George Maharis, Jess Walton
113
4.19
All My Darling Daughters
Comedy/drama
November 22, 1972 (1972-11-22)
Wednesday
Unsold pilot; followed by My Darling Daughters' Anniversary (5.23).
Two scientists doing research on monkeys at a remote, snowbound research laboratory where a lone colleague had mysteriously died face strange happenings of their own. Starring: Robert Culp, Eli Wallach**, Michael Gwynne
Stories of lives changed when mail is lost for a year. A cheating husband writes a breakup letter to his wife before reconciling. A wealthy woman writes her sister about her newfound happiness before she's murdered by the treacherous pianist they competed for. A wrongly accused man chased off by his girlfriend's mother dies after writing of his intent to clear his name. Starring: John Forsythe, Pamela Franklin, Ida Lupino, Dina Merrill, Ben Murphy, Leslie Nielsen, Jane Powell, Barbara Stanwyck, Lesley Ann Warren, Henry Jones
First unsold pilot for an anthology series from Aaron Spelling, similar to his The Love Boat and Fantasy Island shows; followed by Letters from Three Lovers (5.09).
Unsold pilot; based on Dorothy Uhnak's first novel; her third novel, The Ledger, was adapted to become Get Christie Love!, a 1974 Movie of the Week and pilot.
The movie featured the song "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce; his death in a plane crash eight days after the movie premiered eventually drove ABC Records to release it as a single, which subsequently reached #1 on the U.S. music charts.[11]
Tales of lives changed when letters are delayed for a year. A young woman writes to her jailed boyfriend about her continued devotion, who had pushed her away after he was sent to prison. A busy executive's wife begins a monthly affair at a hotel, and her companion is supposed to mail a letter if he cannot attend. Two office workers in the same building mistake each other for wealthy people in Palm Beach, with the man writing a confessional letter declaring his unworthiness and begging her forgiveness. Starring: June Allyson, Ken Berry, Juliet Mills, Belinda J. Montgomery, Martin Sheen, Robert Sterling, Barry Sullivan, Lyle Waggoner, Henry Jones
A scheming wife lures an insurance investigator into helping her to murder her husband and then declare it an accident. The investigator's boss, not knowing his man is involved in it, suspects murder and sets out to prove it.
A schoolteacher, frustrated by his ex-wife's refusal to let him see his surrogate son and his own reputation for meekness, becomes an increasingly unhinged and violent stalker. Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jean Seberg, John Vernon, Sam Wanamaker
Second unsold pilot for a Gene Roddenberry concept; a reboot of his 1973 pilot Genesis II on CBS. Another unsold pilot without Roddenberry's involvement followed in 1975, Strange New World, also on ABC but not a Movie of the Week. That final reboot reused the PAX name, a plot point of prolonged suspended animation and had John Saxon return as lead actor, but had a completely different premise and backstory.
Produced by Aaron Spelling, with the non-mystery aspects very similar to his later 1977-86 TV series The Love Boat; Richard Long's final role before his sudden death.
A gang of thieves separately pull diamond heists along the West Coast and gradually assemble on a Greyhound bus with their spoils, but they have to contend with a dogged retired cop on board who is obsessed with the case and beginning to see a pattern. Starring: Lee J. Cobb, Gig Young, Matt Clark, Robert Walden, Geoffrey Lewis, Grayson Hall**
Second unsold pilot for a TV series; the first of two sequels to The Daughters of Joshua Cabe (4.02), followed by The New Daughters of Joshua Cabe (which, unlike the other two movies, was not an ABC Movie of the Week).
Self-contained anthology with Karen Black in three unrelated roles. Followed by two sequels, Dead of Night (1977) and, years later, Trilogy of Terror II (1996) (neither of which, unlike the first movie, was an ABC Movie of the Week). The first two movies were unsold pilots for a horror anthology TV series to be called Dead of Night.
